A Polestar 4 electric SUV is on display during the 20th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) on April 18, 2023 in Shanghai, China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Launching smartphones with EVs
Meizu is not a major smartphone player in China with companies like Apple and Oppo among the biggest. And the Polestar smartphone would not be an attempt to grow market share.
Instead, the unusual step of an EV company launching a smartphone comes from a desire from automakers to make the car like a mobile phone on wheels.
“Where you have an opportunity to link these two worlds, without any border … then you can really have a seamless transition,” Ingenlath said.
You can imagine a world where you’re using an app on your phone and you enter the car and that same app is displayed on the car’s dashboard screen, for example.
“I still have problems to get, you know, an SMS displayed,” Ingenlath said of the frustrations with current technology.
Ingenlath added that the phone will be a “premium” device. Meizu is known in China for more mid-tier devices. This will help Meizu push into the high-end device market for handsets too, Ingenlath said.
While it is still unusual for car companies to launch phones, the idea is gaining some traction. Chinese EV start-up Nio plans to launch its first self-developed mobile phone in September.
There are lots of reasons this could make sense specifically in the world’s second largest economy.
It’s not just good enough to bring a great European design to China, you have to be very, very special about what you offer to the market when it comes to software.
Thomas Ingenlath
CEO of Polestar
Firstly, there is no Google Android mobile operating system. This means that automakers can customize the operating system on their phone and the car to sync up. For example, Meizu has its own operating system called FlyMe. And the company is making an operating system for Polestar cars based on this.
The smartphone that Polestar releases is also likely to have a similar OS which will make integration seamless.
“It’s not just good enough to bring a great European design to China, you have to be very, very special about what you offer to the market when it comes to software,” Ingenlath said.
“Many OEMs are following Geely and potentially other future players such as Apple if they come up with their own car with their smartphone to provide a holistic and tighter connected experience in every aspect of mobility,” Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
An OEM is an original equipment manufacturer and refers to car manufacturers.
Shah said the smartphone would also allow Polestar to bundle software, apps, services and features such as remotely controlling or turning on the car with a phone.
Launching a phone could also help carmakers learn more about their customers’ habits, Shah added.
Polestar 4 ‘more premium’ than Tesla’s Model Y
The Polestar 4 is on sale in China for 349,800 Chinese yuan ($47,890) — that’s more expensive than Tesla’s Model Y which starts at 263,900 yuan.
The Polestar 4 is being positioned as “more premium, more luxurious” than the Model Y, Ingenlath said.
The CEO said Polestar’s customers come from German carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz and that the car is being positioned more as a competitor to cars like the Porsche Macan.
Britt Lower and Adam Scott in “Severance,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Source: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is now available on Android devices as the iPhone maker on Wednesday released its video streaming service for Google’s mobile computing platform.
It’s unusual for Apple to release Android apps. The company typically focuses on software for its own iOS and MacOS platforms, but Wednesday’s release is the latest sign that Apple won’t be limiting the growth potential of its Services division by keeping popular services like Apple TV+ exclusive to its own devices.
More people have iPhones than Android phones in the U.S., but globally, Android claims a 72% market share, according to Statcounter. Releasing Android apps significantly expands Apple’s market.
Apple’s Services business is its second largest behind iPhone sales, and Services hit a $100 billion per year revenue rate last year. In addition to subscriptions like iCloud, the unit also includes sales from advertising, search deals with Google, AppleCare warranties and payment fees from Apple Pay.
Apple TV+ is among Apple’s most popular services, and it’s best known for shows like “Ted Lasso” and “Severance.” It also broadcasts Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball games.
The company has never released viewership numbers for Apple TV+, but Nielsen estimates say it accounts for a small fraction of total American TV watching. It costs $10 per month in the U.S. and is included in several bundles alongside iCloud storage, Apple Music and other subscriptions.
Besides a few niche apps, Apple doesn’t have a long track record of making Android apps. Its last significant services app for the Google platform was a decade ago when the company released its Apple Music streaming service for Android.
The Apple TV+ app is available to download through the Google Play app store, and users will be able to pay with their Google accounts. Apple did not disclose a revenue-sharing arrangement with Google, but both companies typically take about 15% of billings from streaming services through their app stores.
Lyft shares shed about 6% after the ride-sharing app reported lackluster fourth-quarter results and offered weak bookings guidance as it lowers prices to keep up with competition.
The company reported revenues of $1.55 billion, versus the $1.56 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenues grew 27% from $1.22 billion a year ago. Bookings, which measures the charges posed to customers for rides and services, came in at $4.28 billion, behind a $4.32 billion FactSet estimate.
“I think what the future holds is great, because it’s a huge market, and we’re doing a great job,” CEO David Risher told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “We got to figure out how to get the traders on the bus.”
The company did beat expectations on fourth-quarter earnings, reporting an adjusted 29 cents per share compared to the LSEG expectation of 22 cents per share. The figure excluded certain amortization and compensation charges, and a gain from terminating a lease.
Lyft also said it anticipates a slowdown in gross bookings as it grapples with a lower pricing environment. The company expects bookings to range between $4.05 billion and $4.20 billion, versus a $4.24 billion FactSet forecast.
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During the earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Erin Brewer said the company lowered prices and used discounts in the end of the year to keep up with the market. Ongoing pricing headwinds could lead to a low single-digit percentage point impact on gross bookings, she added.
Brewer also said that the end of its partnership with Delta Air Lines will weigh on rides and gross bookings in the 1% to 2% range during the second quarter.
Last week, Uber shares also declined on mixed fourth-quarter results and soft guidance. The ridesharing competitor also signaled that it may take years to build out and commercialize autonomous vehicles.
Lyft reported net income of $62.8 million for the period, or 15 cents per share. That’s compared to a loss of $26.3 million a year ago, a loss of 7 cents per share.
During the fourth quarter, Lyft also recorded 24.7 million active riders, ahead of the 24.6 million StreetAccount estimate.
Alongside the results, the company announced a $500-million share repurchase plan and said it aims to roll out its Mobileye-powered taxis as soon as 2026 in Dallas.
Texas-based neurotech startup Paradromics on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Neom and said it will establish a Brain-Computer Interface Center of Excellence in the region.
Neom is a developing area within northwest Saudi Arabia that’s touted as “a hub for innovation,” according to its website. The area’s strategic investment arm, the Neom Investment Fund, led the partnership. Paradromics declined to disclose the investment amount.
Paradromics is building a brain-computer interface, or a BCI, which is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. The company will work with Neom to “advance the development of BCI-based therapies” and set up the “premier center for BCI-based healthcare” in the Middle East and North Africa, it said in a release.
“Working together, we can accelerate the rate of innovation in BCI and expand access to impactful BCI-based therapies.” Paradromics CEO Matt Angle said in a statement.
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Paradromics is one of several companies racing to commercialize BCIs, including Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink. Earlier this month, Neuralink announced it has implanted three human patients with its technology, according to a blog post. Precision Neuroscience and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates-backed Synchron have also implanted their systems in humans.
None of these companies have secured the FDA’s final stamp of approval.
Paradromics’ BCI, the Connexus Direct Data Interface, is an array of tiny electrodes designed to be implanted directly into the brain tissue. The system could eventually help patients with severe paralysis regain their ability to communicate by deciphering their neural signals.
The company is gearing up to launch its first human trial this year, and announced its official patient registry in July. Paradromics’ technology has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it still has a long way to go before commercialization. In 2023, the company received the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation, which aims to help accelerate the go-to-market process.
Watch: Inside Paradromics, the Neuralink competitor hoping to commercialize brain implants before the end of the decade